


With Many Lost Days

by ComeAlongPond14



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Dubious Consent, M/M, Multiple Personalities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 13:48:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1107591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ComeAlongPond14/pseuds/ComeAlongPond14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is happily married to one man, but it seems he lives with several.</p><p>Or: How Sherlock and John Watson-Holmes deal with multiple personalities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Many Lost Days

**Author's Note:**

> So, I thought I'd lost this story in my Google drive, and then I stumbled upon it while organizing all my 'verses so I could keep writing them. Figured I'd share it while I work on another Silence 'verse one-shot. Sorry if the ending feels abrupt or harsh--I don't really consider this a happy story, so I didn't have much more to add.
> 
> Title is from Hunger Games book 3, Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins.
> 
> PS I should mention, since I am quite obviously obsessed with Seb Moran, that THIS character is actually Sebastian Wilkes, the banker who knew Sherlock in uni. And is a douche.

_Slowly, with many lost days, I come back to life._

There are bad days.

John walks into the kitchen, and he's there at the table, leaning back in the wooden chair with a lazy arrogance that sets John's teeth on edge. It was so wrong to see that familiar body, that beloved face, and then to see such an unwelcome, mocking glint in his eyes.

"Sebastian," he greets him, and he can't just snidely call him #3. But of course Seb can tell that he wants to. He doesn't have to share a genius' mind to see the contempt and resentment in their husband.

Sebastian grins anyway, stretching the pale lips unnaturally wide, not a real smile. "Morning, doc," he answers, idly flipping the pages of a financial magazine open on the table. "Sleep well?"

John shoots him an annoyed look, and Sebastian snorts and raises a hand in mock surrender. "Hey, I left the bed as soon as I woke up. I'm not interested in his kinks."

The smaller man turns away and sighs, closing his eyes tightly. Sebastian is infuriating for him, though of course he wasn't the worst part of this ordeal. He just hates the man's jibes and contempt and abuse of the real identity--

He stops that train of thought, sucked in a breath. This is what their therapist, Dr. Hooper, keeps warning him of. This is why Mycroft constantly offers to watch him--them?--when John needs a break.

But he always says no. He always says he can do it. He has to.

He returns to the table, silently placing a cup of tea by the magazine. He glances at the notebook lying open beside it, the untidy scrawl of a banker standing out on the white page. Unconsciously, his hand comes to rest on the man's bony shoulder, robed in the ratty blue robe.

"How is this going?"

Blue eyes cut to his, more hazel sparkling in them than was usual. "I'm fine, Dr. Watson. Everyone is fine." He tips his head back, then sighs and reaches up to touch John's hand, more out of courtesy than desire to do so. "Sorry I'm such a prick to you."

John smiles tiredly. "Not your fault. I know I must look at you like...well. Not how anyone wants to be looked at.”

“Like I’m not supposed to be here. It’s alright.” He flips the magazine closed, then smiles and raises the tea with a small nod of gratitude. “I’m going to go out for the day. I’ll leave a note on the phone for whoever comes next to call you.”

John gives him a genuine smile, then turns back to the stove, not wanting to let Sebastian see his expression vanish. He hates this.

* * *

There are sad days.

The phone rings, jolting him out of a deep sleep. He’s on the sofa, must’ve fallen under watching telly last night...most likely waiting to hear footsteps on the stairs. His stomach twisted, because he knew that he wouldn’t sleep through anyone coming home. They either couldn’t stay quiet enough, or had the courtesy to wake him.

The phone is still ringing. He grabs it wearily, pressing it to his ear. “‘Lo?”

The elder of the Holmes brothers sounds exhausted. “John. Someone here to speak to you.” John sits up quickly, feeling his pulse triple in speed. Either one of them got in serious trouble and Mycroft intervened, or it’s--

“Hi, John.”

He sighs, feeling both relief and frustration. “Henry. You’re at--at Mycroft’s?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. I just, I woke up sitting in some pub, and he’d left a note saying to call you for a ride, and I got mad again, and then really sad, and I thought about Dr. Mortimer and Dr. Hooper saying that I was the one who couldn’t let go of them dying and the trauma of my school days, so I wanted to go back, but I ran out of money, and then Mycroft--”

“Henry,” John cuts him off, because the poor man can talk his ear off when he panics. “It’s fine, love, it really is fine. I’ll take the train and come get you, alright? Just stay with Mycroft. Have some tea, okay? It will help, I promise.”

There’s a slow inhale, like Henry is trying to let John’s words soothe him. “Okay. Okay, yes. Here’s Mycroft.”

John is already tugging his jacket on, digging his shoes out from under the sofa, as phone changes hands. “John, he needs to go home if he knows he’s going to change. You need to impress that on him.”

Biting his lip, John resists swearing at the far--too-calm tone of his brother-in-law’s voice. “You try telling him, you sod. It’s like talking to a brick wall. Four of them. Maybe more.”

There is a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll make a note of it to Dr. Hooper. Perhaps she can help get through.”

John snorts rudely. “Henry, maybe, but the others are too stubborn.” He pauses, staring at his own hand, which is outstretched toward the cane leaning against the wall behind the door, where it’s sat for the last three years. He’s often looked at it, rarely reached for it, occasionally just tried to make himself throw it away. But there it stays. Slowly, his hand drops. He is past that. They were past that.

“John.”

“I know, I know, I’ll be on the train in a jif. See you soon.”

* * *

There are terrifying days.

When he wakes up to the temperature in the flat being at least 20 degrees too cold, the living room windows thrown open to admit the cool autumn air. The hallway closet has been raided, spare blankets and sheets and towels dragged out and spread over the books and papers and magazines that cover every surface, concealing the minds and interests of the man who lives there with John. He knows, but does not want to face, the man who cannot stand to see these reflections of himself.

Inevitably he’ll be in the big leather armchair, staring into space or sipping tea or perhaps working away in the notebook, his chaotic and ever-changing handwriting sprawling across the page as he writes notes on his own demented ideas, threats against the others, and often filthy pornographic descriptions of what he wants to do to John. The army doctor doesn’t particularly care when he does that. He knows it won’t happen, or least it’s very unlikely. Those notes are there to torment and alienate the others.

He stops, gazing down at the bent head and hunched shoulders. He wishes he could hug him, but this isn’t the right day for sentiment.

When the black-haired man speaks, his voice is cold and sing-songy. “Going to stand there starin’ all day, Johnny boy?” His gaze flickers up. “Mm, aren’t you just fuckable today.”

John rolls his eyes, not allowing this upper hand. “You say that every day, Jim.”

“I’m not here every day.” A mad glint is transforming those gorgeous blue eyes into something wild and tempestuous. “Johnny boy, if I asked you to wear a collar for me, would you do it?”

John laughs, going to put the kettle on. “We aren’t in a relationship, love.”

Jim just giggles, honest-to-God gives a disturbing little giggle. “Aren’t we? You love him, you love us all.”

John’s shoulders are stiff. “No. You aren’t the same.”

He should have been watching, this conversation is dangerous and he should have been keeping up with it. Instead, he is stunned and unable to react when he is suddenly seized around the waist and swung around, his body weight dropping across the table top. He cries out, trying to break away, but Jim is far stronger than expected.

The Irishman leans over, and John shudders in horror as familiar lips brush his ear, a painfully familiar tongue caressing the soft flesh of the lobe. The voice is so a part of him, even with its current accent, and his whole body is on fire as Jim whispers to him.

“No, we aren’t the same. I’m not weak, willing to be leashed by my big brother or my sweet little caretaker-husband...by comparison, I am a force of bloody nature.” One hand slides up to grasp John’s jaw, forcing his face to turn, allowing Jim to press a hard, biting kiss onto John’s mouth, ignoring his writhing and muffled groans of protest.

John is aware that Jim is pinning their hips together, and that the man pressed against his back is hard, rutting up against him like an animal. He is torn between revulsion, and awareness of the fact that it may be Jim, but he still knows this body like his own. A whimper escapes him as his own body responds to the stimulus, and he feels tears burn his eyes.

Jim’s voice is hoarse as he continues to rock his hips, his increasingly stuttered pace hinting that he can come, just from this. “I’m not him, but you’re body is still mine to play with, Johnny boy.” A few more hard thrusts, and he goes still, groaning faintly into the back of John’s shirt as he comes, and John is shaking. He does not move, afraid that if he does, he will reach down to palm himself.

Jim suddenly laughs. “It’s alright, Johnny boy, I’m quite delighted knowing I can affect you.” His hand sneaks around, doing the touching for John. “So delicious, pet.”

John lets out a pained gasp of resistance, trying to make himself yank away. But he can’t. He lets Jim stroke him through his trousers, feeling his pants grow sticky with pre-come. “Please,” he whispers miserably. “Sh--Jim--Jim...please.”

Jim grins ferally, all teeth and no kindness. He ignores the near-slip. “Ah, there we are. You sound so pretty when you beg, you know.” He reached up, wrapping one hand around John’s throat, tightening until his airway is restricted. John chokes, writhing as he fights to inhale. Much as he hates himself for it, though, he does not really fight for escape, because there is no denying the way his cock leaps at the pressure.

Jim is working his cock in earnest now, choking him with one hand while rubbing him with the other. His voice was wrecked in John’s ear. “That’s it, Johnny boy, come for me, come and think about how it’s me doing this to you, not him.”

John cries out helplessly as he climaxes, his hips pumping uselessly through the aftershocks as Jim steps away abruptly, going to the sink to wash his hands and fetch a cloth. He wipes John down, as well, then leans back against the table, folding his arms and smirking.

“No so bad, that, was it?”

John scowls, trying to reassemble some feeling of dignity. “You’re a prick.”

Jim shrugs, still smiling, and turns toward the bedroom. “I know. But you’ll keep letting me do it, because you can’t say no to this face.” Turning back around, he gave John the best impression of the real smile that John had ever seen him pull off, and his stomach twisted miserably.

* * *

Then there are good days.

John sits at the kitchen table, doing his best to type up this week’s entries from the notebook. He always sends them to Dr. Hooper before their Monday morning sessions with her, so she would have some insight into what had happened since they’d last met.

Footsteps shuffle in from the bedroom, and his shoulders slump into a more relaxed pose as Sherlock wanders in, rubbing his eyes sleepily. He looks exhausted, but at least he is himself.

John half-smiles, nodding to the counter. “There’s some caffeinated tea, or some coffee, if you’d rather.” He watches his husband cross the room, absently twisting the gold band on his left ring finger. He tries to remember life before he loved this man, or life before they learned about Sherlock’s condition. He can’t.

Back still turned, Sherlock speaks quietly. “He didn’t clean himself up, this time.”

John frowns, then stiffens, a choked noise of regret slipping from him. Most of the time, if Jim was a sodding arsehole like he’d been yesterday evening, he at least tidied away all evidence, letting Sherlock come back to himself with a clean slate. Apparently he wanted to be spiteful this time.

It makes the army doctor’s stomach turn. “Sherlock--”

His husband is suddenly looming over him, tugging his head back to expose his face, and he is kissing him, fierce and hungrily. John returns the pressure just as needfully, desperate for some contact now, when it is actually the two of them. He shoves his chair back and stands, needing to get at Sherlock’s skin, and to know it is the man himself who is wearing it.

“You’re mine, John, aren’t you?”

The question startles him, and he pulls back to stare into Sherlock’s beautiful eyes--so blue/green, so familiar, nothing lurking in them, no one else peering out at him from inside his lover’s soul. “I am,” he murmured back. “I am, always, and you know that. I hate him when he tries to come between us.”

Sherlock smiles wryly. “I suppose, in a way, it’s not really ‘between’ us.” As he speaks, his hands rub over John’s body, re-memorizing it, and the doctor surrenders eagerly. He watches longingly as the long, pale fingers slide beneath his shirt, tugging it up and off, discarding it.

Sherlock continues speaking as he goes to work on John’s belt. “It is my body, after all. He’s just driving it. Perhaps it’s like...roleplay.”

John chuckles weakly. “I could imagine it that way, if you want. But you’re a better actor than he is.”

Sherlock’s fingers stutter. “He isn’t acting, John. He really is a psychopath. He would hurt you, if he didn’t know I would retaliate.”

John’s hands close over his. “How could you--”

“No more talking.” The detective’s eyes are on fire now, and he is swift as he removes John’s remaining clothing. He drags his husband sideways into the living room, forcing him back into his own armchair. John laughs breathlessly as his lover straightens, stripping himself quickly, though still gracefully enough for it to be a show. John opens his arms in welcome.

Sherlock crawls over him, straddling his thighs and wrapping his arms around John’s neck as he kisses him soundly. This, they know well. The taste and feeling, the sensation of belonging. This is when John is happiest; when it is his best friend, love, and lifelong partner in his arms.

The others had appeared, unbidden and shocking--Henry first, wide-eyed and scared and trapped in adolescent anxiety, terrorized by the memory of the car accident that took his parents, needy of Mycroft’s guidance and John’s gentle love. He was childlike, transforming Sherlock’s brooding features and tall, graceful frame into something tightly-wound, clumsy and afraid. John had woken up holding Henry, who did not want his advances or to be reminded that they were married, but simply needed to be held and told he was safe, and the car accident was long in the past, and John would take care of him.

And then came Sebastian, embodying the bitterness that Sherlock hadn’t realized he had built up. Bullying and abuse for being an orphan, for being a child genius who couldn’t keep his observations to himself, angered by the endless stupidity of his peers and the condescension of adults. He ignored Dr. Hooper, refused to heed Mycroft, and treated John as though he were beneath him--which had been more painful than he could have believed, seeing his husband’s eyes shift away from him with dislike, watching those beautiful features twist with indifference.

Jim had been the worst. John knew that Sherlock’s brilliance had the edge of something mad and untamed to it, knew that had he wanted, the detective could have become a criminal mastermind, and done just fine. Apparently those urges were not so easily locked away. Jim was dark and scornful and cruel, just as intelligent as Sherlock but with none of his personal ethical codes. He lashed out violently  at Dr. Hooper; had made himself a security risk for Mycroft’s government work; and more than once John had to stop him from going to see some professional Dominatrix he had found online, ignoring the sting of Jim snapping that John was happily married to the boring one, and Jim wasn’t having it--he needed his fun, too.

But after all that, there is this, the moments when it is Sherlock Holmes tucked up against him, rutting their bared skin together, whimpering in his ear and whispering his name. “John,” he pants quietly, and it is his voice, the sound of love and memory and all that they have experienced together, and John is overwhelmed. He runs his hands through the dark curls, cuddling Sherlock closer.

“I’m here, love,” he answers, and then gasps as Sherlock suddenly sits back, hands scrabbling to grab the lube he must have hidden in the end table drawer. John leans back, groaning softly with relief and excitement as Sherlock squirts a small amount onto his fingers, warming it before he reaches back.

This is not meant to be slow or seductive. It is rushed and need-fueled, both men needing each other desperately. To know that it is their marriage, no matter what Jim or anyone else says or does. That they belong to each other.

Sherlock either prepares himself exceptionally quickly, or doesn’t want to be completely ready. John cries out in pleasure as his lover sinks onto him, hearing Sherlock’s breath hitch in his ear as the detective rides him slowly, then gradually more roughly.

The voice in John’s ear is ragged with need. “I don’t care about these voices hissing in my head, or what they say in the notebook for you to read, or what they try to do to you. I love you, John. Please, remember that.”

The doctor tightens his arms, clutching his spouse against his chest. “I know, Sherlock. It will be alright, love. They are all you, and we will find a way to get through it. Someday you’ll find a way to integrate them.” He rocked his hips, chuckling hoarsely as Sherlock keened when he brushed his prostate.

Sherlock is breathless. “What...if I...don’t want...them...all?”

John grabs his chin, making him look into his husband’s eyes. “I will never--” he punctuated his words with thrusts--”ever”--a searing kiss, leaving Sherlock gasping against his lips--”love you less--no matter--what--is in--your bloody--brilliant--head--understand?” Slowing his hips, he smiles, his voice teasing as he adds softly, “Maybe we can manage to lock Jim out.”

Sherlock shivers, knowing he doesn’t mean it, but John knows he wishes it could be done. “John,” he murmurs. “If I can’t integrate them--or if Jim comes back and he’s...he’s really in my head, part of me....will...will you...?”

John’s hands tremble as he meets Sherlock’s gaze, letting him see the love there. He kisses him lightly, making him taste and feel it, as well.

“I will never leave, Sherlock Watson-Holmes. I am here to love you--and them--always. You are the best man I’ve ever known.”

Sherlock looks haunted, and John realizes suddenly how afraid the man must be; at any moment, he could slip away, and someone else take his place, wrapped in his husband’s arms. A surge of protectivity rushes through him, and John emphasizes his promise with his movements, wrapping himself tightly around Sherlock and dragging him closer, their bodies pressing and sliding together like they were made to. Sherlock is crying out, moaning his name and whispering thank you into his skin and kissing him, and John loses himself in the feeling of their bodies intertwined.

It is hours later, as Sherlock sleeps fitfully on the bed with his head on John’s thigh, and the doctor has his laptop open, engaged in an instant message conversation with Mycroft about the events of the past week, that he thinks over what he said to his partner. Sherlock’s diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder had been difficult to process, but he had adjusted. He had taken his vows and he was not walking away.

He could not pretend it was always easy; he hated it when Henry looked at him like a big brother or a father-figure, his husband’s eyes fixed on him in an utterly platonic way. He hated it when Sebastian mocked him or made crude remarks about their sex life. He loathed Jim, with his confidence and apparent love for violence, his lack of boundaries and the faint conviction he had that someday, the bastard would use Sherlock’s body to commit a murder, or worse. But he understood; he knew that they were only so disturbing to him because they were each their own small piece of Sherlock, and he hated sharing that.

But he would never give up.

**Author's Note:**

> Does this have to become another verse? XD I'm sort of liking writing Jim-in-Sherlock's-head.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Jim's Quite A Character](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1216699) by [Joss_Teagan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Joss_Teagan/pseuds/Joss_Teagan)




End file.
